Four-time NCAA National Champion and now WNBA player Breanna Stewart recently joined the #metoo movement. The UConn alum wrote a moving piece in The Player’s Tribune, an online newspaper for athletes to tell their stories through articles.
In her piece, Breanna reveals that she was molested as a young girl by a man who she describes as a relative:
“I’d hear his footsteps coming down the stairs.
He’d sit down next to me, pretending to watch TV. Sometimes, he never went upstairs to sleep and just waited on the couch.
I knew what was coming next.”
Breanna says that the man would touch her and try to get her to touch him. Eventually, the man was arrested after Breanna decided to tell her parents.
“We ordered pizza. During dinner, the cops came to the house to tell us he’d been arrested. My dad later told me that the guy had confessed everything to the police.”
Even Breanna expresses how the #metoo movement has inspired her to tell her story. This article has the potential to reach so many victims, athletes and non-athlets, and to give hope, given that she is such a popular sports figure, not just the UConn community, but the whole country.
Being in the public eye, she says felt uneasy about writing this article.The basketball star explains how she doesn’t consider herself a very vulnerable person. She says:
“I haven’t told many people. I’m not the most vulnerable person — I don’t talk about my feelings much — so this is uncomfortable.”
Clearly, sharing this kind of information is a big step in Breanna’s life.
This story also shows the power and importance of basketball for Breanna. She mentions how even after the incident, she continued to go to practice. She says she was just a normal 11 year-old who wanted to play the game.
Breanna has won many basketball games in her lifetime and many championships. The writing of this story is a different kind of victory for her.
Our world needs prominent and strong figures in sports, media, and other industries to speak out like this and to try and reach as many people as possible. What Breanna did was brave, and the perfect way to achieve this.
Breanna’s article teaches us a lot of things. She teaches us to not be afraid, to do what’s right, and to use a story to do good in the world. She has made the UConn community and sports fans everywhere extremely proud.
You can find her full article from The Player’s Tribune here: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/breanna-stewart-me-too/